McCain’s Counteroffensive
Last fall, according to McCain aides, the New York Times inquired about McCain's relationship with Iseman and her clients. At one point the back-and-forth between the paper and the campaign became so heated that McCain retained Bill Bennett, a well-known Washington attorney specializing in scandal (Bennett represented President Bill Clinton in legal battles arising from the Paula Jones case), and appealed directly to Bill Keller, executive editor of the Times. On Thursday McCain denied that he had tried to kill the story and described his dealings with Keller as "trying to find out what was going on."
Though the paper had delayed publishing the article, details of the story were leaked to the Drudge Report, prompting McCain and his aides to try to dismiss the matter before the storyline could take hold. "Gutter politics," the campaign declared.
Upon word that the story was set to publish, the campaign rushed to respond. Salter and another top aide, Steve Schmidt, traveled to Ohio to join their boss on the road, while emissaries, including Bennett and campaign adviser Charlie Black, hit the airwaves. During an appearance on NBC's "Today" show, Bennett said he and the campaign had provided the Times with numerous examples of instances in which McCain went against the interests of Iseman's clients and other clients of her firm—and complained that the paper's story did not mention those. Other McCain allies also took aim at the Times, a newspaper often reviled as a liberal beacon by conservatives—and it is possible that the story may help rally some on the right, who have had their problems with the maverick McCain, to the candidate's side.
At the news conference Thursday morning Schmidt and Salter looked on, expressionless, as their boss spoke to reporters. At the microphone Cindy McCain stood inches away from her husband's left shoulder, a smile frozen on her face. Asked to comment, she told reporters that she trusts her husband. "He's a man of great character," she declared.
Minutes later McCain walked away from the microphone, hand in hand with his wife.
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Member Comments
Posted By: Suzy Carmichael @ 02/24/2008 12:52:22 PM
Comment: I think that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. They publically humiliated Bill Clinton not to mention Hill, and talked about impeachment. Why is his name still on the ballad? May be had real sex may be "didn't have real sex" but more than liky he had something inappropiate with Iseman. American people don't have time to find out.
Posted By: douglassoileau @ 02/23/2008 6:54:36 AM
Comment: Of course Mccain didn't , "do it ". He wasn't taking viagra then........I would like to say i have respect for Senator Mccain, his patriotism just tugs ant my heart and his concern for humanity. I was really moved by his comment for Castro, that, Castro wold die soon and go on to meet Karl Marx. This statement had me in tears. I to have hopes, I hope that Mccain will get out of the Race for the White House and go on to his, Assisted Living Facility, Even though I am confident that his 30 some years of incompetence will change Washington..........our loss but I think we will survive...John.... I'm sure Vicki Iseman will find another "Friend", to replace you.
Posted By: clikdawg @ 02/23/2008 12:02:25 AM
Comment: bigbrewhaha -- At fifty-six and counting, I am well aware that I am on the wrong side of your generational divide; and that whether or not any individual on my side of that divide is guilty of the sins you enumerate, the generation as a whole most certainly is. At the very least, we have allowed the current sad state of affairs to flourish after fighting our own good fights in our youth; perhaps, like those who fought WWII, each generation has the stamina to fight one war and one war only, and is too exhausted by that one war to do more than take the easiest path offered thereafter. That is neither an apology nor an excuse -- it is just the way I think things go.
Naturally, our failures have rendered any lessons we think we have learned or advice we might wish to impart would be presumptuous -- we screwed the pooch, end of story.
So I personally will confine mself to one warning, for whatwhat it is worth, based on a lifetime study of history and the people around me in public and private life: If you let your genertion be talked into the shifting of a useless war in Iraq into a useless war in Afghanistan by anyone at all, no matter how charismatic or trusted, you will have been had; and it wiill be you, then, who preside over the destruction of whatever is left of this nation.
Best of luck to y'all -- believe I'll just go on out to pasture now ...
(Sorry about any typos. My little window here shows only five lines; after that it's by guess and by golly ... )